Of Spilled Popcorn and Gender Roles
by icbiwf
Summary: Katniss has opinions about strong, capable women. Peeta has opinions about one strong, capable woman in particular. Something short and sweet for Day 2 of the Prompts in Panem visual prompts week, inspired by God Speed by Edmund Blair Leighton and by the old movies I've had to sit through while taking care of my mother lately.


"Fare thee well, my brave knight. Fight with honor, and then please, please return to me," the fair maiden pleaded.

"I shall fight to return to you as fiercely as I fight for my lord and liege," the warrior promised, letting his horse linger for an extra moment before he followed the rest of the company through the city gate.

"Oh, please! What nonsense!" Katniss said, throwing a handful of popcorn at the TV.

"Is the movie not living up to all your expectations?" Peeta asked, a smile playing at his lips.

"This is such crap!" she exclaimed. "She's the one who learned swordfighting and horsemanship from her uncle the baron! _She's_ the one who taught _him_, and yet when they go off to fight, he's the hero and she gets left behind. How the hell does that make any sense?" She slammed the bowl down on the table in disgust, spilling more popcorn.

Peeta tried not to laugh. "You know we're just going to have to clean all of that up later, right?"

Katniss narrowed her eyes at him. "What, you think this is okay? They're so desperate for troops that they have untrained boys who don't even fit in their armor, but they won't take fully-grown, highly-trained women? And she just accepts it! She just accepts that her best option to defend herself is to train someone else so he can defend her."

Peeta opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. He had been with Katniss long enough to be smarter than that, at least. Godspeed to anyone who tried to interrupt his wife when she was ranting like this. "How about the scene before?" she asked. "When the raiders broke into her uncle's estate, and trapped her _in the weapons room_, and she made no effort to try to defend herself? She just cowered in the corner and cried, and waited for some man to come along and save her. A man who didn't even know how to fight until she trained him!"

He tried to keep his face passive, because he was sure she would misinterpret his amusement as an insult towards her, or think he wasn't taking her seriously. The truth was that he loved the passion she brought to any subject, even things like the depiction of women in a movie about warring knights and medieval chivalry. He loved how deeply she cared about things. He loved the determination in her eyes as she argued, the firm set of her delicate jaw, the flush that rose on her cheeks as she became more agitated. Every time she displayed this fierce side of herself, he marveled all over again that he had managed to win over the fiery beauty. That he had somehow carved out a place for himself at her side. That he was one of the very few people lucky enough to see her softer side, to see her tender and loving and vulnerable. And that thought made him smile, every single time.

But if he let a smile slip through now, Katniss wouldn't understand the reasons behind it until she calmed down enough to listen to his apologies, probably sometime overnight. So he schooled his features as she continued her arguments.

"And don't even get me started on the love triangle!" she said. "One man she shares a deep connection with and risks her life to protect, another man who has to guilt-trip her into kissing him - that or practically force himself on her - and somehow she can't choose between them? She keeps vacillating between a man she obviously loves and a man she obviously feels nothing but friendship for. How can they expect the audience to identify with her at all when they depict her as so clueless and indecisive that she can't make such an obvious choice?"

She looked at him expectantly, but he held his tongue in case she was about to continue. "Well?" she finally prompted him.

Peeta spread his hands out in a gesture of surrender. "What do you want me to say, Katniss? Are you trying to convince me that the gender politics of 12th century England sucked? Fine, you're right, but that's hardly worth getting angry about _now_."

"This is more a reflection of the people who made the movie than the time the story is set in," she argued.

"And this movie was made in the 1950s," he said. "Also not a banner era in terms of equality between the sexes."

Katniss huffed loudly, but he could see that his arguments were having an effect. She wasn't as agitated as she had been. "Fine, you're right. Stuff like this just really gets to me."

"I know," he said. He risked extending his arm around her shoulders, and was rewarded when she leaned in against his side. "It's no use getting so worked up over these old movies," he said as he drew her closer to him. "If anything, you should be getting angry at the fucked up gender politics of current movies."

His words had the desired effect; she laughed lightly into his side. "Why are we even watching this movie anyway?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said. "You had it on already when I got home."

"I just flipped the TV on before going into the bedroom to change; I didn't even see what was on. You were watching this when I came back out."

He smiled at her. "So neither of us even wanted to see this in the first place?" She shook her head, and they both laughed. "Well, I have a suggestion then. Why don't we watch something else?" He took the bag he had left by the end of the couch, and slipped out the DVD he had picked up on the way home from the bakery.

Katniss's face lit up when she saw what he was holding. She snatched the box away from him and tore the wrapping off. "I forgot that came out today!" she said excitedly.

It was the movie adaptation of one of Katniss's favorite novels, a German book called _Die Tribute von Panem_ that had been a huge hit when it was translated into English. The protagonist was a badass female weapons expert who proudly proclaimed her opposition to marrying and was disdainful of efforts to beautify her with fancy makeup and hairstyles. The character was the perfect antidote to the helpless damsel-in-distress they had been watching earlier, and by all accounts the actress chosen to play her in the movie had done an incredible job.

Katniss had eagerly awaited the movie's release, but the spring had been so busy for them, with her park opening new trails and him getting the new bakery up and running and Prim graduating medical school, somehow they hadn't gotten out to see it. Katniss never said anything, but he knew she had been disappointed. So he had reserved his copy of the DVD a month earlier, to make sure he could bring it home for her the day it was finally released.

He pressed a quick kiss to her temple as she read the small booklet that had come with the movie disc. "How about I go make a fresh batch of popcorn? And maybe some hot chocolate?"

She turned and looked up at him with a smile so full of love that it took his breath away. "That sounds wonderful."

He gave her a quick peck on the lips, almost feeling bad for what he was about to do. "And while I'm doing that, you can pick up all this popcorn you spilled," he said, and quickly fled to the kitchen.

"That's not funny, Peeta!" he heard her yell from the other room.


End file.
